Digital Preservation News 043

Roughly weekly/monthly news and opinions from the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Head of Research and Practice, Paul Wheatley. Opinions are the opinions of Paul and those featured. Not the DPC. They’re just opinions, ok? Just because the blog has moved to the official DPC website does not mean this isn't just a load of opinions. Back issues are here.

Welcome to a new era. Post-truth. Alternative facts. The 2017 that the pretty awful 2016 appears to have just been a gentle warm up for. And I suspect it's going to get pretty hot. As Terry Pratchett once said - there is light at the end of the tunnel, but it's a flamethrower. But fear not dear reader. Although the DPC has a brand spanking new website to which Digital Preservation News has moved, the usual pedantry, gentle snark and (hopefully) useful digipres news is not going anywhere.

Let's begin with something a bit more uplifting, and it was the DPC's annual "What I wish I knew before I started": a student conference to inspire, inform and reassure the next generation of digipresers.

And that's exactly what the DPC is here for. Digipres may (just about still) be a niche discipline, but it's also incredibly broad. It's impossible for a practitioner to have all the expertise required to successfully nail every part of their role. Community and knowledge exchange is the solution. Which is one of the reasons we've just launched a new website:

This isn't a DPC newsletter, it's the digipres news, but there's one more DPC related story I want to dip into before I move onto other things. We launched a new category of DPC membership: Commercial Supporters:

Funds generated by Commercial Supporters are ring fenced for supporting member's staff development (and a few other great causes) such as the scholarships we awarded to early career professionals to attend iPRES last year. An important part of the DPC's role has always been in providing impartial advice to our members, and so the relationship we have with vendors is critical to get right. This new scheme however ensures that there is good value for vendors, without compromising the independence of thought that the Coalition can provide. As the commercial marketplace becomes increasingly important to this sector we have to continue to build a partnership with digipres vendors. So it's been a long time coming, but I think DPC has got it just right.

There was another of those "write it to some kind of long lived media and chuck it into a mine" articles again. Look straight ahead. Don't rise to it. Laa laa laa, not listening. Just ignore it, it will go away...